Futures Literacy
Futures literacy… Sounds cool, but what does it mean? Reading the future through a crystal ball maybe? Or maybe reading the wrinkles on your hands? I don’t think those will give us many reliable answers though… Just last friday my crystal ball told me I'd find my soulmate that same day, but I’m still lonely up here in the cloud. Anyway, I can tell you are just as curious as I am, time to explore!
What is futures literacy?
UNESCO describes futures literacy as “the capacity to know how to imagine the future, and why it is necessary”. To put it simply, a person who is futures literate can imagine what the futures might look like and sees why it is useful to imagine different futures.
Do you often think about the futures? What do you imagine the futures might look like?
Maybe you are wondering why we keep saying ‘futures’, instead of just saying ‘the future’.
Well, that is because there isn’t one future. There are multiple possible futures which are influenced by our actions and the things that happen in the present.
Why is futures literacy important?
So, we talked about what futures literacy is, but now why exactly is it important? Well, by imagining different futures, we become more aware of the sources of our hopes and fears. This means the things we would like to see in our futures, and the things we would not like to see.
Futures literacy makes it possible for us to appreciate the choices we make fully.
By thinking of what the effects of our choices could be, we can make more educated decisions. By imagining the futures, we can set goals for ourselves to work towards. This is true for both individual people and groups of people, such as companies, or even entire countries.
Think, for example, of the Paris Climate Agreement where different countries came together to try and achieve an environmentally friendlier future. By imagining what the futures might look like if we do or do not change our approach to the environment, the different participating nations set goals for themselves.
Is our anticipation of the future based on assumptions?
Now that we know what futures literacy is and why it is important, it’s also good to take a moment to think about how we think about the future. Are the thoughts we have about the future truly our own? Well, yes, they are, but they also are not.
You see, the way people see the futures and think about the futures is influenced by things like the culture and the place where you grew up. The culture you are a part of forms the base from which you view the world. This can lead you to have certain assumptions about the futures.
Let’s take robots for example. In Japanese popular media, robots are often portrayed as being helpful and faithful to their human creators. Japanese people tend to have a quite positive view on robotics and often positively anticipate futures where humans and robots are working together.
Meanwhile, in Western media, robots are often portrayed as dangerous and vengeful toward their human makers. Just think about the Terminator movies, where an A.I. uses robots to eliminate humanity. We then also see that in Western societies people anticipate far darker futures when it comes to robotics.
When did people become futures literate?
Although your ancestors may not have called it futures literacy, it has always been important to the human species. The two things that set humans apart from other life forms on earth is that we can, on the one hand, imagine things. Abstract concepts like math, or physics. On the other hand they can communicate those concepts, those abstract ideas very well.
In the far past your ancestors didn’t only need to work together, they also needed to be futures literate simply in order to survive. They had to constantly think about the futures in order to know what to do to stay alive. For example, they could imagine that if they did not build a shelter and store food, they might freeze or starve to death the next time winter came around.
Similarly, people anticipate today that if they do not fight climate change, society as they know it cannot continue to exist.
Although the future problems people anticipate today are very different and often more complex than the problems your ancestors would have anticipated, the principle remains the same. You anticipate what the futures might hold and try to realise the most desirable outcome.
What can you do to become futures literate?
Let’s take my friend Rob as an example. Rob would like to look good for the summer and train to have abs. Rob imagines that, if he works out and eats healthy foods, he might get the result he would like. When Rob imagines himself watching television and eating sugary snacks all day, he anticipates he will probably not have abs by the summer. Based on the different scenarios Rob imagined, he decides what he is going to do to achieve his goal.
You see here that Rob has imagined different futures for himself. Based on what outcome Rob anticipated, Rob takes actions to make his desirable future a reality. Next to his personal futures, which Rob has just envisioned, there are also the possible futures that all people a part of. We will call this the collective futures, if Rob wants to influence our collective futures he will have to work together with others. For example, Rob is very concerned about climate change. So he finds other individuals or organisations who share his concerns for the environment. Together they can envision what the futures might bring and they can act as a group to try and bring about the future they think is the most desirable. By anticipating the futures (thinking what they could look like), both personal and collective, Rob has practiced futures literacy.
